canar
04/29/2012, 12:49 PM
As I am sure many are I am pretty confused right now after reading about LED's for days. Please respond to this thread with relevant info. Yes I know Halides are cool but I also know LED's are the future. Staying with halides is not an option I am considering. Also just assuming that something made in China does not work for me either. I realize there are challenges dealing with overseas sellers.
My Tank is 10 feet by 3 feet by 30" high and all I care about is SPS. I have a pretty high canopy that has a fan in it and would do a good job of hiding any mess that comes from DIY or whatever I do. The tank has been set up for 10 mini luminarc's running 400W Halides with actinic tubes running the perimiter.
Here are a few things I think I figured out. Please discredit anything here because I am trying to learn.
I want Cree 3W LED's
I want optics but I still need to figure out coverage area against how high I will hang a fixture off the water.
There are blue Cree's and there are white cree's. I am not sure if there are differences in which blues and whites are best for SPS or what the ideal ratio of blue to white is yet.
I have seen that UV and IR are important to SPS as well. Not sure how much of either or exactly what that is for.
Since it was about the price of one new bulb I did purchase one of the cheap 100$ 120W blue and white fixtures. It has no optics and looks about as bright as a 250W halide. It is not close to as bright as a 400.
I have looked at fixtures and DIY. I have looked on ebay and alibaba reeflights etc.
Right now my thoughts are looking for an inexpensive fixture with Cree 3 W LED's and optics. It seems there are enought China companies making these right around the $150 range. At that price I could cover the whole tank with the cree blue and white for a fairly reasonable price. Then I could run strips of IR/UV/Moon Lights inbetween the fixtures with DIY components to fill in all the area's with the missing spectrums.
Any input on any of this that would help my planning would be greatly appreciated. With as long as these things should last I want to do this right the first time.
Ted
My Tank is 10 feet by 3 feet by 30" high and all I care about is SPS. I have a pretty high canopy that has a fan in it and would do a good job of hiding any mess that comes from DIY or whatever I do. The tank has been set up for 10 mini luminarc's running 400W Halides with actinic tubes running the perimiter.
Here are a few things I think I figured out. Please discredit anything here because I am trying to learn.
I want Cree 3W LED's
I want optics but I still need to figure out coverage area against how high I will hang a fixture off the water.
There are blue Cree's and there are white cree's. I am not sure if there are differences in which blues and whites are best for SPS or what the ideal ratio of blue to white is yet.
I have seen that UV and IR are important to SPS as well. Not sure how much of either or exactly what that is for.
Since it was about the price of one new bulb I did purchase one of the cheap 100$ 120W blue and white fixtures. It has no optics and looks about as bright as a 250W halide. It is not close to as bright as a 400.
I have looked at fixtures and DIY. I have looked on ebay and alibaba reeflights etc.
Right now my thoughts are looking for an inexpensive fixture with Cree 3 W LED's and optics. It seems there are enought China companies making these right around the $150 range. At that price I could cover the whole tank with the cree blue and white for a fairly reasonable price. Then I could run strips of IR/UV/Moon Lights inbetween the fixtures with DIY components to fill in all the area's with the missing spectrums.
Any input on any of this that would help my planning would be greatly appreciated. With as long as these things should last I want to do this right the first time.
Ted